Unlearning Exercises. Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning

Edited by Binna Choi, Annette Krauss, Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Liz Allan

Shares a set of collective unlearning exercises to make way for a culture of equality, difference and fairness in art organizations.

Learning is often progress-oriented, institutionally driven, and focused on the accumulation of knowledge, skills, and behaviors. In contrast, unlearning is directed towards embodied forms of knowledge and habitual ways of thinking and doing. This book shares the collective study of processes of unlearning, taking art and art institutions as sites for unlearning. Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons becomes the experimental case with collective unlearning exercises expressing the conditions, modalities, and implications of a particular group of art workers. Unlearning processes make way for social transformations that lead towards the culture of equality and difference which we call the culture of the commons. 

Learning is often progress-oriented, institutionally driven, and focused on the accumulation of knowledge, skills, and behaviour. In contrast, unlearning is directed towards embodied forms of knowledge and the (un)-conscious operation of ways of thinking and doing. Unlearning denotes an active critical investigation of normative structures and practices in order to become aware and get rid of taken-for-granted truths of theory and practice. This book shares the process of unlearning, taking art and art institutions as sites for unlearning and Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons as an experimental case.

Unlearning Exercises range from daily practices like cleaning together and off-balancing chairs, to those concerning systemic, seemingly unresolvable issues such as collective authorship and fair wage. These exercises can be adapted to your specific (institutional) contexts within and beyond the arts. The book also includes related personal accounts, essays, political criticism, and collective conversations on institutionalized habits.

Contributors: Liz Allan, Antariksa, Jacob Apostol, Binna Choi, Cráter Invertido (Yollotl Alvarado, Andrés García), Joy Melanie Escani, Brigitta Isabella, Faisol Iskandor, Ismiatun, Nancy Jouwe, Annette Krauss, Emily Pethick, Andrea Phillips, Ying Que, Kerstin Stakemeier, Sakiko Sugawa, Syafiatudina, Ferdiansyah Thajib, Marina Vishmidt, Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Erminah Zaenah, and the shifting team at Casco Art Institute

The reprint of Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning is published together with its younger sister Unlearning Routines of the Impossible. For this occasion, the cover is newly designed by Rosen Eveleigh. 

232 pages, 24.4 x 16.5 cm trim, paperback

£22 / €25 / $27

ISBN 978-1-57027-425-1

Release to the book trade 15 March 2025

Released by Minor Compositions, Colchester / New York / Port Watson

Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of everyday life.

Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia

www.minorcompositions.info | minorcompositions@gmail.com

In collaboration with Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht (https://casco.art)

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons is an experimental platform where art invites a social vision. Casco’s initiatives are process-based and place-specific, forming community and generating art and knowledge as common resources.

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